The industry impresario, whose viral-marketing shenanigans helped propel titles like "Not The Bradys XXX" to mainstream exposure on shows like "The Insider" and blogs like Defamer.com, calls his next mainstream spoof, "Not Bewitched XXX," his best yet.
"We've got a cast that's second to none," he told XBIZ. "All told, we've got 23 cast members, an eight-girl orgy - it's a fun romp."
Mullen went on to call his fun romp a "wholesome porn movie that's entertainment for the entire family, provided everyone in the family is over 18, of course."
This commitment to fun, lighthearted parodies of mainstream sit-coms has led Mullen to devote an entire wing of his company's production strength to making what he calls "Nick at Nite gone porno."
It all started with X-Play's 2004 production of the first "Britney Rears" spoof. Subtitled "Wild Backstage Sex Party," VCA distributed the title, which was successful enough to spawn three sequels.
But Mullen's spoof of the classic TV show "The Brady Bunch" proved to be the inspired choice that propelled his company down its current course. Once again, X-Play produced the spoof, titled "Not The Bradys XXX," and in this case, LFP distributed the DVDs of the title. Mullen directed under his alter-ego, Will Ryder, while sharing producing duties with Scott David.
The success of "Not The Bradys XXX" got the title primetime exposure in four stories on the gossip program "The Insider," as well as an appearance for the movie's star, Hillary Scott.
When time came to send up another classic TV show, Mullen made out an extensive list of possible projects and discussed them with Hustler's creative director, Drew Rosenfeld, who suggested a title that wasn't at the top of Mullen's list - at first.
"The more and more I thought about it, the more it seemed like such a great idea to spoof," Mullen said.
But despite the initial involvement of Hustler, Mullen and X-Play wound up finding a distributor with Adam & Eve Pictures. In the interim, Hustler has since moved on to its own mainstream parody, "This Ain't The Munsters XXX," complete with its own production team and a new director, Anton Slayer.
Mullen stresses that he sees the friendly competition from Hustler as just that - friendly competition - though he has gone out of his way to coin a catchphrase to help everyone distinguish between X-Play's and Hustler's products.
"If it doesn't say 'Not,' it's not," Mullen said, referring to the naming convention that "Not The Bradys XXX" and "Not Bewitched XXX" have taken, versus the "This Ain't The Munsters XXX" naming that Hustler has adopted.
But despite that, plenty of confusion still surrounds the projects. Mullen put out a press release clarifying that "Not Bewitched XXX" would be distributed by Adam & Eve, not Hustler.
Another project also muddies the waters, Hustler's upcoming release "This Ain't The Partridges XXX." Despite the "This Ain't" at the beginning of the "Partridges" title, Mullen and his crack team made the movie and as soon as they finished shooting it, according to Mullen, X-Play turned over everything to Hustler.
But X-Play also has several other mainstream spoofs in the works, including:
* "Not the Bradys XXX: Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," the sequel to "Not The Bradys XXX," naturally.
* "Not Threes Company XXX," which will come out in early 2009, distributed by Hustler.
* "Not the Love Boat XXX," which X-Play will shoot in December.
* "Not Charlie's Angels XXX."
* "Not The Cosby Show XXX."
Given the friendly rivalry with Hustler's "Munsters," project, Mullen is quick to heap praise on his competitors.
"'Munsters' and 'Bewitched' will be the best comedies this year," he said, though he added that "Bewitched" has a shot to win Best Comedy awards at all the major shows this year.
To that end, Mullen has been assiduously promoting "Bewitched," with weekly - sometimes bi-weekly - press releases and a slew of videos on YouTube.com.
In addition, X-Play maintains a permanent online presence for its mainstream spoofs at Sitcums.com.
Why all the effort? Mullen said that he and his team like to make memorable products.
"The beautiful thing about porn, as opposed to mainstream, is that in this business there are some very lucky guys making money that produce bad porn. Most bad porn eventually results in red ink however, he said,” he said. "But if we put enough energy and quality into our product, then it has a much longer shelf life.”
"As long as people are watching reruns, they'll know about these movies," Mullen explained. "A guy in Iowa who walks into an adult book store and sees 'Not The Bradys' for the first time - it's as fresh to him then as when it first came out. I'm not interesting in making movies that die after a month."
But no matter what, Mullen plans to keep the mood light and fun.
"We're entertainers, not pornographers," he said. "I like to entertain people for the two hours they're watching one of my movies. I believe you can laugh and jerk off at the same time."
